


The Very Small Army Doctor in the Pirate Pyjamas

by treadsoftlyonmydreams



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Family Fluff, Fluff, Gen, My First Fanfic, Parenthood, Parentlock, Parentlock just gives me lots of feels ok..., SERIOUSLY ALL THE FLUFF, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, please don't be mean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-20
Updated: 2014-02-20
Packaged: 2018-01-13 05:18:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1214137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treadsoftlyonmydreams/pseuds/treadsoftlyonmydreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of the Holmes-Watson offspring has trouble sleeping whilst John is otherwise occupied, meaning Sherlock to the rescue! Mystery solving and fluff ensues. Enjoy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Very Small Army Doctor in the Pirate Pyjamas

**Author's Note:**

> All the thanks and gorgeous, lovely things in the world to my gorgeous, lovely beta curlylinguist without whom I would have been far too shy to post this. Check out her awesome Sherlock/Neverwhere crossover fic she's currently writing. You will have no regrets.  
> Hope you enjoy! Please be kind but honest. Emphasis on the kind.

“Dad?” The timid voice came from the doorway, causing Sherlock to jump out of his reverie and look up from his thinking pose, perched in his chair. Thackeray was stood in the hallway, an untidy mop of blondeness and too-large Captain Jack Sparrow pyjamas, Rob the hedgehog clutched to his chest, looking rather anxious and rather small. Smaller than Sherlock remembered, which troubled him. He was usually quite good at keeping track of the ages and sizes of his various children. He was just shutting off the double homicide from the day before, getting back his focus. Then he realized; he was thinking of Hamish. Hamish was three inches taller. Right. Good. Child correctly identified. Excellent. It didn’t take a genius to work out the cause of Thackeray’s upset.  
“Can’t sleep?” The small boy nodded, gripping Rob ever tighter, as a good chunk of straw coloured fringe fell into his eyes. No Holmes-Watson child had consented to having their hair cut for a good couple of months now. It was an interesting phase. John blamed Sherlock. Something about following by example and having an extra, even more stubborn, overgrown child to pander to. The root of the problem announced itself from upstairs, as they heard a rather nasty bout of coughing, followed by a child’s muffled sobbing. Then John’s voice, his “comforting dad” one (similar to “concerned doctor” but with slight differences, not unlike “exasperated with Sherlock”, but in actuality closer to “convincing Sherlock that sleeping is a valuable and interesting use of time right now”) “Alright, you’re ok. Come on, chin up, Trouble. You’re fine. You’re ok. I know it hurts. You’re ok.” The crying died down.  
“Hamish?” Thackeray nodded again. Chest infection. Nasty business. Worsened by asthma. He’d be fine. He was getting better. Completely illogical to worry. John was a doctor. It was fine. Still. Bit not good. Sherlock shuffled back to make room and patted the space next to him, and Thackeray crossed the room like a shot, clambering up to squeeze in beside him, taking care to ensure Rob was securely positioned on his other side, before settling down next to Sherlock. Neither spoke.  
Sherlock looked at the small Pirates of the Caribbean pyjama-clad addition to his chair. His round face, just starting to lose its puppy fat, and slightly obscured by sandy blondeness, fixed in a worried expression that gave him the air of something very ancient and very determined and very soft. It was all perfect. He was all John. Or at least what Sherlock saw was all John. He wasn’t sure what came first. The perfect or the John. But found it didn’t really matter.  
“Dad?”  
“Hm?”  
“Is Hamish going to be ok?” Also John. Persistently kind and endlessly concerned for others. Infinitely perfect. Sherlock thought. Rose-tinted versions of the truth were not something he set any stock in for children. Children aren’t, despite popular belief, stupid. And his children were most definitely anything but stupid.  
“He’s sick, but he’ll be fine. It’s not serious if it’s being treated, which it is. By John. We shouldn’t worry.” Thackeray nodded fervently, fringe flying around somewhat madly. But the look stayed. The war-veteran-army-doctor look that Sherlock knew so well, still managing to look like it did actually belong on such a podgy and freckly face. “Alright. You know your father’s with him.” More nodding. “Then we know we needn’t worry.” The nodding kept happening. “If your dad’s looking after him then it’s completely illogical to worry. John’s good at looking after people. It’s what he does. He’s always done it. He looks after us.” The nodding stopped. The very small army doctor in the pirate pyjamas looked up through his fringe and shifted his hedgehog onto his knee. He seemed to be thinking very hard about something. The kind of concentration levels Sherlock usually reserved for locked room murders and particularly brilliant serial killers. Although he doubted that was what Thackeray was thinking about. At least he hoped he wasn’t thinking about that. (John tended to get extremely cross whenever Sherlock broke their very strict rule about “minimal references to homicide and any related topics, including but not limited to: causes of death, murder weapons, blood spatter patterns, any and all bodily fluids and organs, any mention of cadavers in any form, and any inappropriate language aimed towards certain members of Scotland Yard, at all times when in earshot of the children”.) It wouldn’t do to have John cross. Not when he was already bound to be at least somewhat irritable after looking after a sick Hamish. Everyone said Hamish took after Sherlock.  
This train of thought was abruptly stopped (it had lasted around 2.4 seconds) when Thackeray suddenly looked as if he had solved his murder, (No. Not murder. John doesn’t like to involve the children in murder.) His eyes widened, mouth opened, ready to announce his brilliant solution to whatever had been occupying him, with that proud tone Sherlock was more than familiar with, of it all being all so simple and obvious and brilliant and clever, and aren’t you simple and obvious to have missed it and aren’t I brilliant and clever to have solved it?  
“So then we look after him.” The small pirate-child-army-doctor-hedgehog-keeper-whatever-completely-brilliant-thing-he-was stated. Before blinking simply up at his father and burying his face in the copper-sulphate-blue fur of Rob the surprisingly obliging hedgehog, in a gesture of having thought of something very clever and satisfying and having sorted everything rather well and really feeling quite tired now actually. Sherlock nodded. Rather slowly, and Thackeray watched from between Rob’s ears with a sort of patronising yet fond expression.  
“Well. I suppose we do.” He said slowly. They did look after John. In their own way. In the only way John could be looked after. Not in the same way he looked after them. That would be stupid. Redundant. John knows how to feed people and heal people and make people agree to go to sleep and stop them doing anything too potentially dangerous involving the microwave and a jar of sulphuric acid borrowed from Molly whilst she was on her lunch break. It would be utterly pointless and a waste of brain space if more than one person living in this house knew how to do that. No. John needs different looking after. John needs a case a week. At least. And preferably a couple of murders a month. Involving chasing people. Preferably murderers. Or chasing children also worked quite well. Their own of course. Usually involving some kind of “experiment” that used equipment deemed unsuitable. Usually Hamish. And he needed at least one brush with mortality every two months or so. Otherwise he was irritable and unhappy and clenched his fists and shouted angry things at that rude man at the sports day. Yes. They did a very good job of looking after John. In fact, if one looks at all the ways they all looked after John in the past few months…  
There was finding the best hiding place in the house and seeing how long one may remain there with half a packet of chocolate digestives and the complete works of Dr Seuss before John can find you, (Hamish), The unnecessary societal restraints of clothing and the effects these have on the general public, (Hamish and Thackeray), why Pirate life is far superior to normal life (Hamish, Thackeray and Sherlock), how many colours one can paint the dog before it gets bored and shakes poster paint all over the living room, (The Triplets) how long it is possible to communicate in only rhyming couplets (Thackeray), why green food is bad for you (Hamish, Thackeray and The Triplets, and later Sherlock), how many grams of treacle are needed to successfully glue the dog’s mouth shut (Sherlock) … The list went on. Yes. Sherlock concluded. When one gave it some thought, they really did take rather good care of John. He’d never really thought of it like that. But of course Thackeray had. He was like John. Saw things in brilliant ways like that. He thought about this sort of thing. Sherlock smiled.  
“We try our best, Thackeray.” He looked down, hoping to see his smile mirrored, but instead saw the tangled nest of hair resting on Rob’s head, gently rising up and down. Thackeray was asleep. Understandable really. He had put right all the wrongs in his rather spectacular little world. No point moving him yet, not until he knew Hamish was settled. Sherlock brushed his fringe off of his face, and went back to thinking about the double homicide.  
John came downstairs around half an hour later, Gladstone in tow. John smiled at the sight of their younger son curled up asleep next to Sherlock in his thinking pose, and went to move him back upstairs.  
“Thack alright?”  
“He’s fine. Just worried. Hamish? And the girls?”  
“Doing well, no cause for concern, I’ll take him to the specialist again tomorrow just in case but he’s clearing up alright. Got him to sleep. Triplets were all but comatose, you know them.” Sherlock nodded.  
“Nice job dealing with him by the way” John commented, as Sherlock helped him hoist Thackeray off the chair and into his arms. “I did wonder that he wasn’t there when I tucked Hamish in.”  
“It was no problem. He was just concerned. I told him you knew what you were doing.” John smiled and began making his way back upstairs, Gladstone following again, anxious to ensure all his charges were where they ought to be.  
“Glad you two have so much faith in me!” he called over his shoulder as he went out of sight.  
Sherlock picked a piece of fluff off of his chair and held it to the light as he smiled slightly to himself. It was copper-sulphate-blue.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please feel free to comment, but be gentle it's my first time. ;)


End file.
